I think the research on lead poisoning has expanded throughout the years for the best. The article explains the shift from high-dose effects in clinically symptomatic individuals to the consequences of exposure at lower doses that cause no symptoms, like in children and fetuses. I think the article does a good job to showcasing the importance of lead poisoning and how we must protect ourselves. The removal of lead from gasoline has been the biggest accomplishment for lead poisoning and finding a safer substitute. It also has been cost effective to reduce lead in products.
The next article about the child lead poisoning in Nigeria has raised many environmental health questions and need. In 2010, Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) discovered an outbreak of childhood lead
poisoning in remote Nigerian villages resulting in over 400 deaths in children less than 5 years of age. The source of contamination from artisanal gold ore processing in residential areas. In 4 years of intervention, 2,400 children received chelation treatment and blood lead levels declined. The local leaders bandwagon to created safer mining methods, local involvement in management, design and changing of processes.
Hi Snay,
ReplyDeleteReading the history of how we've grown to understand lead toxicity is pretty incredible, in retrospect we forget to appreciate the steps that were taken to understand the complexity of lead poisoning. I know i'm guilty of taking that knowledge for granted. The article regarding lead poisoning in Nigeria was promising to me because it showed that concentrated effort was placed into analyzing the villages impacted by lead poisoning and precautionary steps were immediately taken to adjudicate the issue.
I was pumping gas the other day and remembered that lead used to be a component of gasoline. In thinking that, I began wondering what new chemicals, if any, were used to replace lead. I'm always a bit skeptical after having gone through the modules in this class and wonder whether we should be worried about lead's replacement. Oftentimes, other equally or even more harmful chemicals are used as replacements. For this reason, I'd be interested in learning how gasoline has evolved since the removal of lead.
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